[p. 502]
|502| years, was once again summoned together, examined the accounts of the committees it found; the pamphlet named supplies at least a part of the results of this examination. The preface says of it summarily: “The results of these accounts contain not only several tons of gold, which have been applied contrary to law, but they run into millions and amount, from the last diet in 1771 to the beginning of the present one, in March 1797, when an end was made of the abuse, to the enormous sum of 4,238,000 fl., say: four million two hundred and thirty-eight thousand guilders of the state’s wealth, over whose faithful administration and application the committees had oath and duty.”
This result may suffice to mention; to extract from it a detailed picture of how deeply independence has let this administration by the estates sink does not belong here. There would in particular be the manifold remunerations to pick out which the committee members allotted to themselves for every important and unimportant business over and above their ordinary salary (e.g. to a chancery clerk for having enquired after the Duke’s health), and so much that seems to be nameable as a formal swindle, in which the same family names occur especially often. Then the neat specimens of diplomatic attempts and missions, and above all their rewards, would also be remarkable; in the account of 1778 to 1781 there occurs a sum of 5000 fl., which was handed over in the year 1770 to a foreign Court Councillor for a journey to Petersburg to pursue the land affairs mislaid there (??); a journey to Munich in commercial affairs at 8700 fl., etc. – It is of no help to say that squanderings and plunderings of the state chest were abuses and illegalities; if in 26 years the sum of moneys of the land applied contrary to law can amount to four million, then certainly the laws are good for nothing under
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